Organized by ESL and presented to you by Kwese, the second season of the ESL Africa Championship has already begun

Currently being at the group stage, the top 4 finishers from the inaugural season of the Championship were joined by the top 4 finalists from the open qualifiers, conducted earlier this month. The group stage will run until the 21st of September where the top 2 teams and players from each part of Africa, namely South and North, will clash each other at the live finals this October at the rAge Gaming Expo in Johannesburg.

Matchweek #1

Counter-Strike

The first matchweek found last season’s top finishers sweeping up their series with clean 2-0 scores, as Energy eSports, Bravado Gaming and Damage Control all found themselves getting fast wins against their opponents. Surprisingly enough, Flipsid3 Africa – subsidiary of the American organization – succumbed to last season’s bronze medalists, Big 5.

On the other half of the continent, the group stage opened with a draw between No Relation Team and KappaMa. Despite the fact that NRT came in confident bringing a solid 16-7 in Mirage, KappaMa didn’t break and scored a 12-16 in Cache, bringing the series to a draw. Furthermore, Tunisia With Love decided to move into a roster change following their defeat during Matchweek #1 against Limitless.gg, by removing chahdonj from their roster and replacing him with Cherif “Audiovision” Tarek.

Hearthstone

As for the second included game of the championship, Hearthstone, it features a slightly different structure setup as every matchweek is comprised of two distinct playdays, while players from the whole continent are merged into one group.

Rankings are still fluid as we have just walked out of the first Hearthstone matchweek, but similarly with CS:GO, last season’s top finishers, Sythe, Saliom and Overgame feature themselves at the top spot of the ladder.

It still unknown as to who will be the ultimate winner in both Hearthstone and CS:GO as the combined prizepool of $51,000 is expected to be a huge motive for the teams and players to stretch themselves to their full potential.